


Lay in the Long Grass

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: South Park
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Kenny felt bad about secretly following Stan, it was nothing compared to how he felt when he found out what Stan was up to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay in the Long Grass

**Author's Note:**

> For [Sky](http://skydiver1017.tumblr.com/).   
>  Title borrowed from lyrics to [Caught by the River](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Caught-By-the-River-lyrics-Doves/51F5494B0474D59048256DDD00309BB6) (Doves).

If Kenny felt bad about secretly following Stan, it was nothing compared to how he felt when he found out what Stan was up to.

Something had been off for a few weeks. Well, no—it had been off for a few years now, ever since Stan's tenth birthday. Things had been really bad for a while there but then they seemed to get better. _Seemed_ to. Some people, maybe most people, had been fooled, but those closest to Stan knew there was still something wrong. He didn't talk about it, though, so neither did they. Not to him, not to each other. They all just carried on like everything was cool again.

Sometimes Kenny wondered if the others remembered they were pretending or if they'd been doing it so hard and for so long, it had become real to them.

Not to Stan, of course. And not to Kenny, either. Kenny knew what it was to remember something no one else did and that wasn't going to happen to any of his friends, not if he could help it.

So he watched Stan. All the time, in ways he was sure no one noticed. He knew Stan pretty well. It was kind of obnoxious to think he knew Stan better than Stan knew himself now, but Kenny thought that might be the case because he sort of didn't think Stan wanted to know himself all that much.

Lately, Stan seemed more off than usual. He was blowing them off, not a lot, but still. He let them think it was because of Wendy but Kenny knew it wasn't. He suspected Stan was blowing her off and letting her think it was because of them. Stan was sneaking off and Kenny was pretty sure he knew why: he was pretty sure Stan was drinking again.

It wasn't the drinking in and of itself that bothered Kenny; he didn't have problems with any of his friends drinking at parties or whatever. But drinking alone… well, Kenny didn't want Stan to start drinking alone again. He thought about what he was going to do when he caught up to Stan and his bottle. Trying to take it away or telling him to stop seemed stupid. Stan would just get another bottle, he'd just get smarter about his secrets. That was the opposite of what Kenny wanted. The best thing would be if he could get Stan interested in something else—he reached into his pocket, fingers closing around the strap of the yellow safety goggles he'd stuffed in there this morning—but if that didn't work, he'd just have to share the bottle with Stan this time.

His hand was still curled around the goggles when he saw Stan come to an unexpected stop by the edge of Stark's Pond. Kenny didn't figure he'd sit there, drinking out in the open like that, and sure enough Stan didn't sit down. He just stood there, staring into the water. Kenny hid behind a tree, crouched down and peering around the trunk. Stark's Pond had always been peaceful and joyful and all good things for the kids of South Park but, even though Stan was perfectly still right now, there was nothing peaceful about him. Anxiety crept up the back of Kenny's neck, making his skin prickle. His muscles tensed, ready to run, to jump in, too, if he had to—

Then Stan turned away and walked into the woods.

Once he was completely out of sight, Kenny followed, conscious of the thudding of his heart. He knew he was taking a chance by waiting, but he was pretty sure he knew where Stan was headed now and he didn't want to give himself away too soon. Just because Stan wasn't in sight didn't mean he wasn't still within earshot, so Kenny tried to move quietly as he followed the path to a certain bend; parting ways with the well trodden path, he headed into deeper woods.

When he got to the clearing and saw Stan hunched over at the base of a bristlecone pine—when he saw the tremors—Kenny thought maybe Stan had started shooting up and his thudding heart sank.

Then he realized Stan was crying, and his heart sank more. He took another step before coming to a stop. "Hey, dude."

Stan jerked his head up but didn't move otherwise; their eyes met briefly before Stan looked away. "Go away, Kenny. Leave me the fuck alone right now, okay?"

It wasn't okay. Kenny went over and sat down next to Stan, who was still turned the other way, still crying. Kenny had cried plenty in his fourteen years, but not like this. Every once in a while, probably on an inhale, a squeak would come out of Stan, not as frantically pitched as Craig's guinea pig, more like Butters' minions. It was almost kind of cute, except that in this context it wasn't cute at all.

"Hey." Kenny nudged Stan's shoulder with his own. "What's wrong?"

Stan didn't answer right away; when he did, his voice was thick, mucus-coated. "It's nothing."

"It's obviously not nothing, dude."

"Yes, it is!" Stan looked at him then, held the gaze for a moment; another. He didn't even try to wipe away his tears and Kenny wasn't sure if he knew he was still crying. Letting out a sigh as deep as the furrow of his brow, Stan looked down. "That's all it is: nothing, all the way through—"

There was an abruptness to the end of the sentence that made Kenny think there was more to it. Nothing all the way through something. Life? The world? Then, looking at his friend, Kenny got it: nothing all the way through Stan.

"Fuck, dude," he said softly.

Stan shrugged. Then he said, "Don't tell Kyle, okay? Or Wendy. Or my parents."

Instead of making a promise he didn't think he could or should keep, Kenny slipped his arm across Stan's shoulders.

After a while, he broke the silence. "Are you, uh. Like, is everything shit again?" He was pretty sure Stan's shrug meant yes. "Close your eyes." The shake of Stan's head was barely perceptible and might not have been deliberate, but his eyes did stay open. "Trust me," Kenny said.

It was a few cycles of inhale and exhale before Stan shut his eyes. Kenny didn't think he should try pushing it as far as getting Stan to put his head in Kenny's lap, even though that's the way Kenny's mom used to do it when he was little. So as they sat together, he moved his hand from Stan's shoulder up to his head and stroked through his hair. When Stan didn't move, Kenny kept petting him.

Kenny waited until he was pretty sure Stan wasn't crying anymore. "Want to come over to my house for dinner? If everything already tastes like shit, my mom's cooking won't be so bad, right?"

Stan looked at him silently, didn't even crack a grin.

"Come on, dude." Kenny offered a half-grin of his own. "I promise not to make any more dumb jokes."

"You can. If you want."

Kenny couldn't tell if Stan was saying that more for himself or for Kenny, so he decided just to take it at face value. "Okay." Before he could fire off another terrible joke, though, Stan's gaze slipped away and the furrow returned to his brow. Kenny followed Stan's eyeline down and saw the edge of the safety goggles sticking out of his pocket. "Oh." He took them out, held them up. "I thought maybe…"

Stan was looking at the goggles, so Kenny did, too, even though he wanted to look at Stan.

Then Stan took the goggles. With a sigh that Kenny couldn't read, he put them on.

"Do they help?" Kenny asked, feeling stupid with hope.

Stan's mouth scrunched on one side, not exactly a smile but not exactly anything else, as he shook his head.

"Sorry, dude," Kenny said, feeling his mouth mimic Stan's.

Stan shrugged. The goggles stayed on. He looked good in them but Kenny didn't tell him that. Stan looked Kenny over and Kenny couldn't help wondering just how shitty he looked to his friend. "Where's your—where's Mysterion's cloak?"

Kenny grinned a real grin. "Tucked away in my closet."

"Does it still fit?"

Kenny's eyebrow quirks up. "Come over and we'll find out."

It wasn't a surprise that that failed to get a smile out of Stan but, even so, Kenny couldn't help feeling disappointed when Stan sighed and looked off once more. Another sigh, and then Stan said, "I don't want to eat with them, though, okay?" He met Kenny's eyes again. "I don't really want to eat with your family or anything. Could we just…"

"Yeah," Kenny said. "Sure." Of course they could just. He got to his feet, held out a hand to help Stan up, grinned more when he felt Stan's fingers curl around his. They didn't have to eat with his family. They didn't have to do anything. But they'd do it together.


End file.
